Learning and Innovating PhD Theses

This thesis aims to answer the following question: what is the contribution and efficiency of educational business games in teaching the principles of sustainable development in an engineering school? Drawing on Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, it demonstrates the effectiveness of educational business games in “igniting the spark” in students, inspiring them to become agents of progress. She also shows that the final result will also depend on the teacher and how they present themselves and use the tool to get participants to play, communicate, take a step back, and… think.

The purpose of this research is to describe and understand the self-regulated behaviors of adult learners in an e-learning environment. The study’s audience consists of 60 union activists working in private companies and public institutions. E-learning is viewed as a process involving contextual self-regulation. The hypothesis is that the adoption of specific self-regulated behavior, resulting from opportunistic skills, promotes learning. Learners who take responsibility for their own training are proactive individuals who adopt a vigilant approach in situations that offer them opportunities to learn. A socio-cognitivist approach allows us to understand the nature of the dynamic process of learning by studying self-regulated control processes. The survey, conducted using a logbook, an interview guide, and a questionnaire on self-regulation, reveals the use of new modes of self-regulation. By seizing opportunities for learning in terms of time and place and using the resources available, learners prepare themselves to think in real-life situations. Opportunistic behavior (which demonstrates the ability to self-regulate in order to appropriate resources) would then be a disposition, an attitude of learning, fueled by a sense of self-efficacy and beliefs that enable action.

This thesis explores the cognitive resources mobilized by engineering students in a PBL (Problem-Based Learning) task involving the design of a technical object. The problem situation faced by these students consists of a novel technical refrigeration system that does not require an external energy source. In this learning process, students must design the technical object and learn concepts in thermodynamics. Two groups of students are compared: the first has an analog model of a known situation to approach the new situation, while the second has only the text. The research questions are: What knowledge do these students construct? What do these two types of learning (learning through a known situation and learning through text) contribute? What obstacles do these students encounter? The hypotheses: learning through a known situation leads to the construction of operational knowledge (tool concepts); learning through text leads to the construction of decontextualized knowledge (object concepts); learning through situations in a didactic setting ultimately leads to the construction of categorical concepts. These two types of learning involve an epistemological obstacle in the construction of concepts in their two functions: tool and object.

This thesis attempts to understand the complexity of becoming an operational manager, to identify identity dynamics, and to pinpoint the milestones and key stages in the “making” of a manager. Its purpose is to explore the making of managers as a sociological experience. The research method is based on the life and training stories of 39 managers and an online survey of 563 managers, and takes a macro, meso, and micro perspective. This development takes place in the context of a managerialization that affects all social relationships. During these changes in reference points, the “figure” of managers tends to become idealized and more defined, competing with the French figure of executives. The ways in which managers are created are examined in terms of their education, career development, organizational learning, and continuing education. These different methods are insufficient to explain the development of the human skills required for the role of manager. It is mainly through informal learning in the workplace that managers develop self-taught practices and learn their “trade.” The processes highlighted in the thesis relate to socio-anthropological, statutory and ritual, relational, social, bio-historical, axiological, socio-cognitive, identity and emotional factors. The thesis supports the idea of a manager who emerges from a process of maturation rather than an innate manager, exclusively gifted with unique abilities. The main contribution is the highlighting of the links between knowledge and identities for the varied trajectories of managers who have come through higher education, continuing education, work-study programs, or the Validation of Acquired Experience.